Postscript to a Tale of Two Markets

I have a couple of last thoughts about my recent trip to Leeds and Copenhagen that are left over from my Tale of Two Markets.

I actually visited three markets this trip, not two. I compared Kirkgate Market in Leeds to Torvehallen in Copenhagen, but I also visited a market in Huddersfield, a small, formerly industrial town a little southwest of Leeds. A hundred years ago, Huddersfield would have been a booming town with a thriving textile industry, like most of the towns in Yorkshire.  Also like most of the towns in Yorkshire, when circumstances changed because of changes in consumer taste, global trade, and technology, Huddersfield’s economy collapsed.  Leeds and Manchester have managed to reinvent themselves but the secondary cities and towns still haven’t been able to find their footing in the 21st century, similar to smaller US cities like Worcester, Dayton, Scranton, Camden, or Gary.

At first glance, Huddersfield is utterly charming.  For example, the beautiful George Hotel, shown at left, is an old (1853) Victorian Hotel that served businessmen traveling to and from this center of woolen, chemical, and engineering industries.  It also served as the birthplace of rugby league football, probably its biggest claim to fame these days.  Yet it closed in 2013 and it waiting for a new buyer to give it new purpose.  There are dozens of buildings like this throughout Huddersfield, but most have commercial vacancies on the street level and the absence of people on these picturesque streets is noticeable (and sad).

But Huddersfield has a market.  It’s called the Huddersfield Outdoor Market and it has different varieties of what we in the U.S. would call flea markets, with a farmer’s market spread out along one wall.  Like some of the markets we’ve seen in Paris and London, it is essentially a huge shed built during the Victorian era where the merchants set up stalls and sell a variety of second hand and salvaged goods.  There are lots of these markets in the U.S. as well and as in the U.S., as Ebay and Etzy and Amazon have facilitated an internet-based exchange of quality used and collectible goods, these physical markets have lost a lot of their cachet.  What’s left is basically cheap stuff sold cheap – goods like DVDs, CDs, household knick-knacks, used (but not vintage) clothing, salvaged hardware, and outdated electronics.

Yet there were customers on a rainy Sunday in Huddersfield and it was clear that this open market was one of the few signs of economic life in town.  I have no doubt that some of the merchants looking bored behind their boxes of old DVDs relied on the sales of those DVDs for a significant portion of their income.  And while the farmer’s market on the west wall looked anemic compared to Kirkgate, let alone the markets we’ve seen in Paris or the Borough Market in London, we didn’t see any evidence of a supermarket in downtown Huddersfield so the bananas and turnips available for sale might be the only fresh produce in the center of town.

When I was comparing the glorious building and shabby interior of Kirkgate to the generic yet bustling Torvehallen in Copenhagen, I didn’t really take into account that that at Kirkgate, as in Huddersfield, there are people who have always shopped at the market and who need the products and prices available at the market.  Torvehallen is an unquestionable success at providing a huge variety of fantastic food for the residents of this section of Copenhagen. Kirkgate and Huddersfield Open Market are serving a forgotten element of the urban population who can’t afford the offerings of a more upscale set of food purveyors.

I have one more thing to say about Torvehallen.  I happened to be there around 6pm on a Friday night and it was beyond crowded.  I wanted desperately to take a picture but there were so many people that I couldn’t back up enough to get a decent shot.  The aisles were set up with stand up tables and Copenhagen’s smartest and hippest were sipping drinks and sampling smorresbørd or cheese or pastries or whatever. I was truly blown away by the energy and the crowd.  In short, for all you urban planners who are reading Kilt in the Kitchen, a hip market is the perfect focus for a social center in today’s city.

Finally, and this has nothing to do with markets, I have to mention my taste comparison for fish and chips.  In Leeds, at a place near the train station called The Brewery Tap I fed my addiction for fish and chips.  The peas were pureed, not mushy and the tartar sauce was called remoulade, but the fish itself was amazing.  Highly recommended.

A few days later in Copenhagen, we were having lunch at one of the dozen or so touristy restaurants on Nyhavn and I saw fish and chips on the menu. Being the cosmopolitan kind of guy I am, I thought I’d see what Danish fish and chips were.

Leeds won.

The Danish fish and chips reminded me a little of Mrs. Gorton’s fish nuggets – heavily breaded (instead of battered) and probably frozen.  Now I know it’s unfair to judge an entire country’s approach to fish and chips based on one restaurant in a tourist area, but still…